Posts Tagged With: abruzzo

On my way to the center of town I got very distracted one day. I randomly stumbled upon a whole street shut down for an antique market. If you know me, then you know that for a 20 year old I’m freakishly in love with antiques and thrifting. I love the romance of jewelry and knick knacks that have a story behind them, even if most of the time you don’t get to know the story. I find owning antiques so much more fulfilling that something new off the shelf at a department store. And with the added romance of them being Italian antiques? Sold.

I loved walking up and down the street looking at all of the fares. Here’s an example of what all of the stalls looked liked.

Of course most of the stuff was pretty worthless as in all antique markets. More like a garage sale. I fell in love with some larger pieces, but I really didn’t like the idea of taking something large and/or breakable home with me in a suitcase. I kept browsing. Here is some antique crocheted lace that is the traditional craft of the elderly women in the area.

I ended up getting a silver ring, pretty low quality, I definitely overpaid for it, but I fell in love. That’s the problem with my shopping abilities. It is not a beautiful ring. At all. In fact, it’s quite ugly. But it reminds me of some of the gargoyles and creatures I’ve seen around churches in the area, and it was made by a local craftsman (supposedly) either way it will always remind me of Italy. And I love unique things like this.

On my bus ride to Chieti I met a really nice lady on her way to her job as nurse who lives in Ortona. She recommended going there, and I had been wondering if I should, so the next afternoon I had free I headed there on a bus. I didn’t buy a ticket, I was still very confused about how to do that. Sadly this time the bus ticket guys got on and were checking to make sure everybody had a ticket. I had my “I’m foreign” act rearing and ready to be played out for better or for worse, when the girl sitting next to me actually didn’t have a ticket either. So, they wrote her up for what looked like a large fine. I was thinking “there’s no way they won’t give me a fine now after setting the precedence with her”. LUCKILY it seemed, through my quickly beating heart, that they had a fining quota, and had met it, so they didn’t even ask to see my ticket. What?! So lucky. I will definitely figure out how to pay for the bus next time.

I got to Ortona, again, having no idea where I or anything else was. I began wandering and was instantly excited about how much cooler it was here. Not cool as in awesome, but cool as in breezy and significantly more shady, so walking around was quite pleasant. Ortona is another medieval town like a lot of the rest I had visited, but this one was coastal so it definitely had a different vibe to it. It was also another very Italian town, nobody spoke English and I obviously stood out as a foreigner.I started off my afternoon with gelato of course. I loved this baby cone and marshmallow they put on it.

I managed to find the “waterfront” which was actually not a waterfront like I was expecting (like in Pescara). I realized we were actually on the top of a bluff with an amazing view of the port.

I then decided to walk along this road on the edge of town to see what I could find.

I then headed back into the main town (Ortona is very small) and found the main church which almost every street has a view of.

Some sort of actually religious ceremony was going on so I didn’t get to go inside. Later this led to an interesting conversation with my host mom about religion, where I figured out that she’s an athiest in all but personal declaration of the word. We had a good conversation about how the catholic church dominates Italy and how that hurts their society in a lot of ways.

While Ortona’s history is rich, beginning in ancient Roman times, most all of the monuments have crumbled. I managed to notice that last bits of a monastery near this church. Most everything else is in decay or has been torn down/built on top of. Makes me grateful for the history people have managed to preserve!

I finished up the day with apertivo, the drink was DELICIOUS, something guava based. Perfect in the residual heat of the day.

Okay so the inevitable has happened, my travel blog was largely abandoned for weeks on end. I will try to fill in some gaps here, based mostly on what I have pictures for. Overall my experience has improved immensly as the boys have actually started learning some important English, and I can understand a fair amount of Italian.

So I went on a day trip to Chieti, which is another one of the four larger cities is Abruzzo (Pescara-L’Aquila-Chieti-Teramo), and it’s about a half hour bus ride from Pescara. Unlike Pescara it is a historical medieval town that sits upon a hill top. Really, it’s everything Pescara isn’t. The same university that has it’s faculties of foreign languages, architecture, and social sciences in Pescara has it’s faculties of medicine and science in Chieti. I’ve actually recently met some med school students from South Korea doing internships at the med school there, sadly they’re leaving in 10 days.

I arrived in Chieti at about 2:00 pm, and my first thought was, “shit, it’s like 100 degrees out” as I was greeted with a dense heat that made the air feel claustrophobic. I shortly realized that it actually was 100 degrees out, and I also hadn’t eaten lunch, so my first instinct was to find somewhere to hide and eat for a little while. I started wandering around (by the way, this is what I always first do in cities, I’m not one for researching ahead of time and planning an itinerary). I then realized that a small town, middle of the day, extremely hot out, in Italy, has NOTHING open until about 4:30. I mean nothing. Ghost town. Tumble weeds. It was quite awkward when I did run into the 2 people I saw between the hours of 2 and 4:30, because I was clearly a tourist girl who didn’t know what I was doing. I contented myself with getting pictures of most of the major landmarks. Here is the main church (I couldn’t go inside until after 5:00)

The pope statue outside the church as actually quite a recent addition (in comparison to everything else, I forget what the actually date was).

I also found the last remains of a roman temple that had the most amazing brick work.

Wandering around I found many angles of what is supposedly a theatre but looks more just like another church to me.

Wandering around I found some cats, that I was legitimately concerned were dead, as it was so hot out. I did finally find a small cafe open in the viscinity of the cats on a random street. It actually wasn’t probably “open” as the probably weren’t expecting customers, it was just the owner’s family hanging out. But it was physically “open” so I went in and got some water and coffee. They were interested in trying to communicate with me, so it was a positive experience. Around the church area there were a lot of flowers spread out, which by my guess was an indication of a recent wedding.

I completed my wandering around by going to the area of what I believe was an architecture museum? It was the main museum in Chieti. I didn’t actually go in as it looked really small and I wanted to save the euros. The area was really pretty though with a park, fountain, and amazing view of the area. As Chieti’s a hill top town it has amazing views from a lot of different angles. Unfortunately as the day was so hot the haziness obscured what would be most of the mountains and things to see.

I decided to head back to the bus stop as I had plans to watch the Euro Cup final at a beach lido and didn’t want to be late (considering my history with buses). Everything was a little livelier now, people were coming out of hiding. It was good to see that people actually live there. All in all I’d say Chieti is beautiful but I don’t think I really experienced it. I’m going back on Saturday to have my birthday dinner there with a friend who lives in Chieti (she was already inviting people over for dinner, I just told her we were going to make it my birthday dinner).

So it has been a little while since I’ve posted. That’s mostly because the days have settled into a pretty reliable routine and nothing that outstanding has happened. But let me attempt to write about a few notes of interest. It has been the Europe cup for soccer, and Italy did really well getting into the championship game, then they lost really badly to Spain. I watched the last two games at a beach club called Miramare with some new friends I met through couch surfing. I think out of all the people I’ve met so far I really get along with this group. The sad thing is they’re a bit older, all around 30 I’d say (they did introduce me to some young travelers though, and we had a fun night going out on the beach ;). However they understand the situation I’m in, and here I honestly do feel older than my age here. I’ve gathered that people 20 years old here most often haven’t gone to university yet, still live with their parents, basically are somewhere still in the high school level that we have in America. It’s not everybody, but the fact that I’m almost done with my first degree while I’m still 20 really amazed them. They had thought I was much older until I told them I was 20. I’m still trying to meet up with a group of ERASMUS students here though, and I think that will be a fun group closer to my age. Anyways, watching the soccer matches at Miramare was really fun! Unlimitied beer, delicious pizza, and various antipasta during the game, and lots of amaros and salsa dancing afterwards. It was a really good environment and I feel like a good slice of the Italian culture.

Here is a picture of Lorenzo and I dressed for Italy.

On the children front things are going much better. They’re becoming more comfortable around me which means they do a little more of what I tell them to instead of me just chasing after them. Hopefully things continue on this way.

A last update is that going out to beach clubs at night is different from normal clubs. For more reasons than always having large amounts of sad in my shoes. People are more spread out, so I’ve had a hard time finding a legitimate club; people aren’t forced to dance as happens in a crowded room.

I got up early, showered, got on my site seeing clothes, ate the subpar breakfast, and got out into the world.

The first thing that hit me was the fact that apparently there is a market Saturday morning. Or at least there was this morning. And I don’t mean farmers market. I mean basically every foot of every street in the entire city had a vendor on it, selling any and all kinds of products. Foods, clothes, toys, rugs, anything. It was crazy. It was very interesting, but at the same time not at all what I wanted. I wanted to see a slow romantic town, that wasn’t as overwhelming as this was. So I finally escaped the market and found a bench in the shade, where I started working on my lace pattern. Eventually some old ladies came and shared the bench with me, then one was replaced with a man. They tried to talk to me but we both quickly found out that we could not communicate. It’s times like these when I realize how little Italian I’ve learned. The old lady was very entertained by me knitting a bathing suit. She was a classic elderly Italian woman, fanning herself in the heat, wearing a funny shirt with a rhinestone Vespa on it. We managed to cover the basics of my name, where I’m from, and how long I’ll be in Italy. At this point they both called my attention to a creep many who had been walking up and down the street continuously smoking a cigar. I had noticed him, but hadn’t thought too much about it, it was a nice place to stroll. But they clearly had a better idea than me about the situation. They insisted on finding out where I was staying and having the old guy escort me home. I thought this was a little extreme, mostly because I wanted to go get pizza, but there was no arguing with two of them for more reasons than the fact that I physically couldn’t. As we headed back through the extensive market I realized the creepy gentleman actually did follow us. We turned more corners, took a fake water detour, headed back to the market, and the guy was still following us. At this point I was EXTREMELY freaked out. I’ve never actually felt so hunted. At the same time I wasn’t sure taking me home was the best idea if the guy managed to follow us all the way there… then he would know where I was staying… but at some point we did manage to evade him and make it the apartment where the B&B was. Then my elderly companion told me to never go out again without a companion (as if that’s possible) and call the police next time something like that happens. Also to call him Papi.

I went inside thoroughly shaken, decided to hide out for a while, and ended up deciding to take a nap through the midday heat. I was almost afraid to leave again wondering what would happen if I ran into the creepy man again with nobody to help me. But I didn’t go to Teramo to hide in my room, so around 3:00 I headed into the city again, slick with sweat. It was still the heat of the day so everybody had deserted the streets. To my surprise the ENTIRE market had disappeared. It was like a ghost town compared to two hours earlier. I really liked this. So despite the heat I went around the city again, taking pictures this time. The sites here aren’t strikingly impressive, but they do have a nice romance to them. There are the last remains of a Roman theatre, intertwined with modern homes, and leading to a beautiful church. I went in the church and was thoroughly rewarded with medieval art and design (and pleasantly cool temperatures). I kept thinking I was going to get kicked out because of my scandalous off the shoulder shirt and my atheism (clearly nobody would be able to know this, but whenever I go into a church I feel like whenever somebody looks at me, they know), but they were busy setting up for a wedding later in the day. After the church I got some gelato at a café with a nice view of the piazza. I knit for a little while, and then went to find some other landmarks. I got some subpar pizza and peach tea (have I mentioned the peach obsession yet….) for lunch, knitted some more, then FINALLY got the courage to ask somebody to take my picture with the church. There are very little tourists here, but there were some others other than me, which felt nice. The first tourists I’ve seen since coming to Italy! I bet most people can’t say that. So I didn’t feel too awkward asking someone to take my picture; I was rewarded with the man speaking English, a wondrous thing. I kind of regret not talking to him more, but he was on a stroll with a lady so I didn’t want to interrupt. At this point all of the people were coming out of hiding for the evening, so I decided to go back to my room for a break. So here we are! Catching up on blogging.

So for some reason I’m extremely delicious to Mediterranean insects. This picture can barely begin to describe the amount of bites I have received. It looks like I have chicken pocks or strange disease. And I’ve had bad bug bites before, I’ve gone camping for weeks at a time in Idaho and Washington, but for some reason these bugs love me more. Why don’t Italians use window screens…….

Last complaint:

I wore these Birkenstocks on my hectic travel day, and they gave me a horrible blister. I’m really upset, I had hopes for these shoes. The blister juices actually permanently stained the shoes, hate to say it but I think they deserved it.

Wow. So I will never win The Amazing Race. And times like these are what make me wonder why I thought traveling would be a relaxing break from reality. I spontaneously decided Thursday night that I would go to Teramo for the weekend. I had originally planned on going to Rome, but decided the heat wave cause by the African winds (I always forget that Italy is actually so close to Africa, they’re so separate in my subconscious) would probably make that a hard first independent travel experience. So instead I decided to do something closer to Pescara. As it was the night before I wanted to go, I had limited options. I was trying to find a cheap hotel or room for rent, but most cheap ones were booked. I wanted to go to a small castle town that there are so many of around here, but there either was no accommodations in the ones I wanted to go to, or I wouldn’t be able to get to the hotel by public transport. So I ended up choosing Teramo. While not quite as picturesque as some of the hill top towns, Teramo has some beautiful churches and is smaller than Pescara, which is something I felt I needed at this point. So I booked a room at a bed and breakfast for two nights.

I was hoping to catch the direct bus from Pescara to Teramo at 2:45 as when I was planning to go to Rome Madda said I could have the afternoon off. But I guess Teramo isn’t as important so when I brought the kids home for lunch I found out she wasn’t coming home until 5:00. Oh well I thought, there were other routes later in the day. So I tried to catch the 5:50 bus that went through giulul—-nova something or other, then to Teramo. Or so I thought. I was actually supposed to take two different buses, so I ended up missing the 5:50 one as it didn’t say Teramo. This was such a frustrating experience. The bus station in Pescara had no shade so it was literally boiling out, my back pack was heavy, nobody speaks English here, buses kept coming and going in no order (the Pescara station is very unorganized, you literally have to run around and check the front of every bus to see which one you need, there are no set “stations”). Finally at 7:10 the bus came again and found it, got on, and the sense of relief was amazing. I had to transfer once which ended up being unpleasant, as I went from a charter bus to a local bus where I had to sit next to a disgusting man yelling in Italian on a phone for an hour. Curious point- I bought a ticket in Pescara, but neither bus driver checked it or asked for money. Anyways, by the time I got to Teramo it was dark out. Thank modern civilization and my host family that my Italian phone has unlimited data so I could use GPS to figure out where I was and the best route to the B&B. And that Teramo is not very big. I got there in about 15 minutes. It was a confusing spot to check in to, as apparently there’s no front desk, somebody just meets you there when you need to check in. So I was waiting outside when an old lady come up to the door (holding a pizza box, of course) and lets me in asking if I was trying to find the bed and breakfast. Apparently this was the wrong thing to do because I got lost inside the building while the guy was waiting for me outside. Oh well I finally got in and checked in and threw my stuff down and decided to go to bed early so I could go out early in the morning.

Quick bed and breakfast review (It’s just called B&B Teramo if you’re curious): Very modern and clean, I got turn down service today which I wasn’t expecting, and everything feels very sanitary. There’s no air conditioning or wifi, both of which are a pretty big inconvenience. Also no first aid kit as I tried to find a bandaid for my blister. The coffee machine is cool, it makes espresso out of these little capsule things. The “breakfast” was pitiful, I recommend just going to a café around the corner and getting some cheap good pastries. I did managed to pick one out that was squishy like a croissant and was good with peach jam on it (have I mentioned they like peaches here?). There was also good blood orange juice though that I liked. Overall I feel like it’s more like a more private hostel, doesn’t really quite hold up to watch a B&B should be.

So I just got back from checking out the beach volleyball club. I was just going to meet the coach and observe some practices to help guess what level I would be at. Alfredo kept insisting I start at the ‘seniores’ level, and after watching for a little while I thought I might be able to. They weren’t spiking very hard and in general the pace of play wasn’t too fast. On the other hand the beginners were struggling to bump the ball without it going out of the court. Honestly, I had no idea if I was going to make a fool of myself, the women playing were rock hard dark Italian women in their thirties, clearly knowing what they were about. When they were taking a break Alfredo led me into the court to meet the coach (a past Olympian, I forgot his name), and he surprised me by asking me to join in right then and there (lessons are pretty expensive). That’s one nice thing about beach volleyball, once you have a court to play on there is very limited gear you need, just a semi dependable bathing suit (sadly the one I was wearing was a cream color, not expecting to actually play, and now it is brown). I surprised myself by actually being able to control my passes and return their serves. I couldn’t serve it over the net overhand, but I’ve really never been able to do that. That’s my main practice point. The Olympian coach spoke very good English, at least when it came to coaching terms, so that was a good discovery. I was worried there’d be a lot more pointing. I struggled a bit with some basic form and techniques, but I was nervous out of my mind so I think I will be able to get better at those quickly. All in all it was VERY fun, so much more fun than I thought it would be. Volleyball in my experience has been a good sport to bond with the other girls, and it proved to be true in this case too. The women were very welcoming of me and said it would give them a chance to practice their English. However, the coach said I should do the first week in the beginner group just to get some basic techniques up to speed. I wasn’t insulted by this, I was happy with the fact that in general he thought I could keep up with these born and bred beach volleyball players, I just needed some reintroduction into the sport.

Main conclusion: in a beautiful sandy place beach volleyball is amazing. It’s great to dive into the powdery sand even if you miss the dig. It’s an amazing workout and by the end of it you’re covered in sand and sweat and feel really accomplished. I hope I can get better, I know it will be a challenge for me every time I try. Especially in this intense environment, it’s definitely out of my element. But overcoming that challenge and reflecting on the fact that I’m watching the Pescaran sunset while being trained in beach volleyball by an Olympic player makes me think about all of the places I could go in this world!

So, I officially have two friends now. I’ve met a lot of people, but these two are more reliable/speak English/are really enthusiastic about entertaining me here. My new friend Alfredo is really proud of Pescara and wants to make sure I have the best time while I’m here. He has talked me into joining the beach volleyball league he is a part of, and insists (like everybody else I’ve ever met) that I must be good at volleyball because I am tall. He’s in for a good surprise…. maybe I’ll be better at beach volleyball? Anyways, it’s always interesting to actually find out the kinds of people you’ll meet. I never expect either of these two, they’re very unique and have both shown me how different people live in Pescara. I’m excited to meet somebody from couch surfing tomorrow, he seems like he’ll be a new piece to the puzzle of the Pescaran people.

It’s quite amazing to me how disparaging a lot of the people here are about Pescara, even my host family. When speaking to people of my life and how I ended up here and how I like it, they’re always very confused about why I would pick Pescara. I don’t think they realize that while they might not have the Colosseum or Greek ruins, they have a beautiful unique culture. It’s modern Italy like you really can’t get anywhere else. Of course I’m interested in classic Italy and the beauty of the historical sites, but Pescara is a great example of how Italy is growing up and facing the new world. It has experimental architecture that is trying to bring Italy into a new generation while still keeping the classic Italian charm. And above anything else, the fresh Italian food is as good as anywhere, and that’s really the most important part.

So, my new friends are helping me get to know Italy better, more through getting to know them than anything else.

P.S. I’m getting fat from Italian food and having a full house of food I’m allowed to eat (normally I don’t have that many groceries and it’s out of my own pocket when I go to get them; here delicious food just keeps filling up the refrigerator. Needless to say my self control has been pitiful). So it’s time I figure out the will power to not gorge on all of the free Italian food and start jogging/playing beach volleyball more. Wish me luck!

A few things have happened since I’ve written. It was Lorenzo’s birthday so there was a large party on Saturday for that. At first I dreaded that thinking of the kid parties I know, and expecting that the au pair would be involved in herding children somehow. That however turned out to not be true at all, we simply went to one of places on the beach that the family rents a palma, where they had set up a little party area with drinks and a pizza/fry buffet. All of the kids were entertained with the impressive playgrounds they have here on the beach, and all of the parents stayed for the party as they were friends of Madda’s. So I actually just got hang out and eat pizza, and figure out which of Madda’s friends could speak English, not bad at all! And family friend Ilaria made the cakes, they had Mario and Luigi screen printed on them. The cake was SO good, I was expecting a normal sheet cake (which I hate) at first, but when I ate it it was an amazing torta with fresh whip cream instead of dense frosting, and pastry cream with fresh peaches in the middle. SO good. I’ve eaten way too much of the leftovers since then….

After the party I got to go out with my new friend Martina. She is amazing, so funny, and maybe not the usual type of person I’d make friends with. She had been an au pair in Dublin so she speaks very good English and understands my situation. We’re also equal parts Irish which I thought was funny.

Anyways, she took me to a wine bar that is off the main riviera party scene. Again, not what I was expecting to be doing with my night, but it ended up turning out better than even could of hoped for. It was such an intimate little setting, tucked away on a back street with tables out on the side walk. Everybody there knew each other. Her friend was the bartender so we ended up getting many free shots, “chicettas” (spelled completely wrong), and some free wine as well. All night she just kept pouring shots, and I’m not going to say no to that. Martina’s not a big drinker these days as she’s “old” (24) so she was taking shots of this dark liquor instead of vodka. I thought it was wine at first, but she corrected me and tried to explain what it was. It was a liquor made in Abruzzo from a fruit she did not know the name for. We tried very hard to figure it out with descriptions like “big cherry” and “really ripe cherry” from Martina, but they were adamant it was not actually a cherry. Thankfully my Italian phone has internet so we finally decided to google translate it and it turns out it’s just “black cherry”. Apparently here they have a completely different name for them, while cherry is “ciliegia” black cherry is “amarena”. Not only did this discussion help me learn about a new liquor, but it solved the mystery I have been dealing with with gelato flavors. I had ordered amarenetta thinking it would be something like amaretto, but then got black cherry flavor, though I couldn’t actually recognize what it was. I now know a lot about the Abruzzo black cherry!

The night turned out very fun and I met some more people. One of the bartenders had lived in Seattle for a year and he was very excited to meet me. A short hipster version of Fabio had his eye on me all night, and wanted me to go to more bars with him after we left, which I would’ve done just to get to know more places, but Martina helped me figure out that they wanted to go to a place that was very far away. I don’t really need to do that as all the best places are close to my home so I turned him down. We stopped by Zara on the way home which is the biggest bar/beach house party there is. SO many people are there, especially starting around midnight. All in all a very good night and I got to know Martina a lot more. She is introducing me to a young knitting circle on Thursday which I’m excited for!